Lewy Mordechay, The motif of the apocalyptic Abessinian: From early Islamic hadith to European prophecies during the 5 th crusade in Damiette (original) (raw)
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The Memory of the Crusades in the Arabic Folk Epics: Images and Patterns (Oriens, 2022, No. 6)
Sokolov O.A. The Memory of the Crusades in the Arabic Folk Epics: Images and Patterns. Vostok (Oriens). 2022. No. 6. Pp. 172–181., 2022
Considering the importance of the Crusades' topos for the Arab discourses of the 19th-21st centuries and its influence on the collective memory in modern Arab countries, the challenge of finding the roots of this phenomenon is valid. This research problem can be solved through the analysis of the memory of the Crusades in Arab culture from the late 13th to the 19th centuries. Therefore, it is relevant to study the preservation of the Crusades' memory in one of the most important types of works of Arabic literature, Arabic Folk Epics. The analysis of the Franks' image in these sources shows that during the era of the Crusades itself and in the subsequent centuries, a huge number of the Arab tribal pre-Islamic narratives and notions about the struggle against Byzantium were transformed into the ones dedicated to Jihad against the Franks. The Crusades created a demand for a Mujahid character in Arab Folk culture in the 12th-13th centuries, and the images of the pre-Islamic heroes were thus reshaped and reimagined for the new realities. It can be assumed that at first the Crusades had reshaped this kind of narratives, and then the Arab tradition itself began to reproduce the image of the Christian-European Crusader in the collective memory of Egypt and Levant due to high popularity of the Folk Epics, which may have created a horizon of expectation for the perception of European colonial policy of the 19th-20th centuries as "the return of the Crusaders".
Al-Masaq 24 (3), pp. 309-312, 2012
This short notice provides a novel and preliminary analysis of the source for the first Arabic history of the crusades, and contributes to the understanding of the penetration of the crusades as a distinct phenomenon into the Islamic world. The Arabic history, Min Ta8rīkh al-h _ urūb al-muqaddasa fī l-mashriq al-mad6ūwa h _ arb al-s _ alīb was published in Jerusalem in 1865 under the authorship of the (late) Melkite patriarch, Maximos III Mazloum (d. 1855). The book was a modified translation of the French Les Guerres saintes d'Outre-Mer, ou tableau des croisades, retracé d'après les chroniques contemporaines, published in 1840 by Maxime de Montrond, who was heavily inspired by Michaud's Histoire des croisades. Though created in a Christian Francophile milieu, it seems clear that the Arabic translation was intended not only for a Christian audience, but also for a Muslim readership, as evidenced by examples, provided here, of the modifications of the French original.
NML490H1S - Readings in Classical Arabic from the Age of the Crusades
Course Description: Using the extant medieval Arabic literary corpus as primary sources, coupled with secondary scholarly literature in English, this course will provide a historical and historiographical survey of the Crusades from an Arabo-Islamic perspective. It will examine the Muslim responses to the Crusades, from the beginning of the movement at the 1096 call for the First Crusade to Salah al-Din’s conquest of Frankish Jerusalem and the stalemate of the Third Crusade (1093). The course will examine each period within this era by sampling in Arabic the remarkably rich, Arabo-Islamic corpus dating from the classical medieval period. Students will read historiographical sources, such as passages from universal chronicles, regnal biographies, dynastic histories, and biographical dictionaries; literary sources, such as poetry, travelogue literature, and autobiography; as well as religious texts, such as Qur’an, hadith, tafsir, jihad treatises, and fada’il (religious merits of cities) literature that inform the Islamic response to the Crusades. The course will conclude by examining the legacy of the Crusades in the modern Middle East and their depiction in modern politics, history, religion, and culture. By the end of the course, students will develop gradual proficiency and familiarity in Classical Arabic through reading different samples of historical, religious, and cultural literature pertaining to the Age of the Crusades.
NMC277H1S - The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives
Course Description: The Crusades, and its legacy, had, and continue to have, a resounding impact throughout Islamic history and the modern day Middle East. During the medieval period, this epoch-forming movement, whether directly or indirectly, imprinted a lasting influence on the central Islamic lands ideologically, geopolitically, and culturally. This course will provide a historical and thematic survey of the Crusades from the Islamic perspective. It will examine the Muslim responses to the Crusades from the beginning of the movement in 1095 to the end of the Crusader presence in the region in 1291. The course will first begin with an overview of Islamic history from the Age of the Prophet down to the state of the Islamic world at the eve of the First Crusade in 1092. The course will then trace the Muslims’ political and military reactions to the Crusader expeditions and the development of the Muslim religious jihad policies during the 12th and 13th centuries under different Muslim rulers, such as Zengi, Nur al-Din, Saladin, and Baybars. It will then explore major themes such as the medieval Arabic sources on the Crusades and Arabo-Islamic historiography. Attention will be paid also to the systematic efforts of major Muslim polities, such as the Seljuqs, Zengids, Ayyubids and Mamluks, in forming cultural unity among the Muslims through the establishment of madrasas, Sufi shrines, and advancing the Sunni revival movement. Among the themes studied is the role of Shi‘i minorities during this period, in addition to Muslim views of the Franks, and aspects of Frankish-Muslim coexistence and cooperation. The course will conclude by examining the legacy of the Crusades in the modern Middle East and its depiction in modern Arab politics, history writing, art and film.